Allons-y! View the Creative Competition Runner-Up

The clamour to reveal second place in this year’s Creative Competition is reaching fever pitch in our online forums! Yesterday we revealed third place as Claire Wright, from Oxfordshire. So the least we can do is deliver as promised. And it has a rather continental feel to it because…

…Alice Baudet’s entry in the 2011 Dolls House Emporium Creative Competition, Villa Bienvenue, was imagined and constructed in deepest France, where she lives overlooking the Loire River, south west of Paris.

She has brought to life a bed a breakfast business complete with its own garden and a cooling swimming pool. It has elements of French style and design and evokes the presence of the owners, even though they don’t appear in her display.

She says: “A typical, calm and warm atmosphere emerges from this tiny house!

“I also wanted this house to be lived in and alive. The unmade bed, the remains of breakfast, and a bit of a jumble inside.”

Alice told the story of the house through the eyes of the family dog which lives at her imagined bed and breakfast, a tour de force which appealed to the judges.

She said in her notes: “I also wanted a taste of each of the hosts of the house, something to simply ‘suggest’ their presence. For him, his favorite sports such as a cricket bat and rugby ball or school ties. And for her, a little photography and drawing.

“I have spread the details a little everywhere in order to identify them.”

As with all the entries, her challenge was to make use the Garden Pavilion kit supplied by The Dolls House Emporium.

Check back tomorrow for the stunning winner – which ticked all the boxes for the judges!